Mets Avoid Arbitration With Neil Walker

The Mets have avoided arbitration with second baseman Neil Walker, per a team announcement. He’ll earn $10.55MM for the coming season, Jon Heyman tweets.

Walker’s salary falls just under the midpoint between the respective filing values of $11.8MM and $9.4MM. It also lands only a bit shy of his $10.7MM projection, via MLBTR and Matt Swartz.

Walker, a switch-hitter, has long been a significant offensive contributor. He carries a .272/.338/.431 slash in 3,426 major league plate appearances. He’s not a great fielder, but is solid enough with the glove to profile as a strong first-division regular.

The 30-year-old came over from the Pirates in a trade that sent southpaw Jon Niese to Pittsburgh. He’ll step into the second base role vacated by former Met and current National Daniel Murphy. Walker will qualify for free agency following the 2016 season.

Comments

Mets will pay more for Neil Walker this year than Nats will for Daniel Murphy.

I still think this was a mediocre to bad trade. We are a one Lucas Duda injury away from having no 1B. Murphy could’ve been the perfect candidate to replace Duda. If Duda has a monster year, he wont be affordable. If he has a crappy year, he wont have any value.

Murphy is going to avg 12.5 mil a year for 3 years. He could’ve been the perfect bridge – gap for 1B-2B-3B.

Walker will be here 1 year and then he’s a free agent. If he has a a great year, we’re not going to be able to compete with the Yanks, if he has a crappy year, we wont want him back

Murphy was a known asset, that we could’ve kept for a decent and very affordable price.

How in the world can the Walker trade be possibly seen as a bad one?
First of all, his impending free agency is a plus because he’ll more than likely fetch a compensatory first rounder if he isn’t resigned next year, and with the plethora of young MI talent the Mets have (Flores, Herrera, Cecchini, Rosario to name a few), signing Murph to a 3 year deal would’ve just blocked their development even more.
Second, the Mets gave up a middling 5th starter in Niese (who they replaced with an even better pitcher immediately, for less than Niese costs) and got a draft pick for letting Murph walk.
Third, Walker (13.9 fWAR, 114 wRC+, -2 DRS and -4.8 UZR/150) has been better than Murph (12.2 fWAR, 110 wRC+, -42 DRS, -6.3 UZR/150) since they both became full-time regulars in 2011.

So here is the move: Walker, Colon and two (or at the very least, one) first rounders for Niese and Murphy. For what logical reasons can that possibly be a bad move?

take walker out of the equation entirely, and 2B is covered by Flores – Herrera – Tejada, with no issues.

take Duda out of the equation entirely, who’s our 1B going forward ?

You cant just plug a 2b to 1B..

Now all that being said, Murph had tremendous value, just not as a 2B defensively. he was horrid.there. no argument from me.

But he was a much more flexible option to play 3B with Wright going down or 1B with Duda either going down or having such a great year that we wouldnt be able to afford him going forward.

If Walker had 3 years left, i can see maybe it being a better deal, but on a 1 year deal? I think we could’ve just kept Niese as the 2nd lefty in the rotation and signed BC to be a swingman/long man in the pen.

Why are we taking Walker out of the equation? The lowest amount of PAs he’s had since 2011 is 530; he’s about as durable as you can get. Even if he wasn’t there, Flores, Herrera and Tejeda could combine to provide solid value at 2B. Backup 1B is a weakness, but it’s the only one on the entire team. As for a backup for Wright, Flores has played there admirably in the past, while Walker has minor league experience, Cabrera said he could do it and Tejeda has shown some ability there too. In fact, both Flores and Tejeda have a much higher career UZR/150 at 3B than Murph does, with only slightly less DRS. The infield isn’t a worry.

Also, by definition, Murphy does not have tremendous value. Not only does he have some of the worst defensive stats of any player in recent memory, his offense has also never been better than above average (save for one year that he hasn’t come close to repeating). He’s averaged 2.4 fWAR since recovering from his knee injury, which is good but hardly “tremendous.” Let’s not act like a 6 game postseason performance is emblematic of Murph’s talent. If your biggest argument to keep Murph is the fact that he’s a solid utility player, you’re just hurting your cause.

You completely ignored the overall move, too. Walker, Colon and 2 firsts for Niese and Murph. An absolutely brilliant exchange. Colon wasn’t going to come here to pitch strictly in relief, and he had bigger offers on the table, so if we kept Niese it wouldn’t have happened. We upgraded slightly at 2B, upgraded at SP AND gained two compensatory firsts because of the Walker move.

aside from new cats who play with calculators and video games more than bats and balls, no one gives a rats ass about a composite number that takes zero account for….
Murph is NOT a second baseman, as a matter of fact, he may be the worst 2B i have seen not named Uggla, I dont need Fwar, or dwar or War the music group to tell me that.

I would not sign Murph with the intention of keeping him at 2B for 162 games, I would sign him, knowing fully well that David is probably not going to play a bunch of games, and Duda is on his way out as well. A great season by Duda renders him unaffordable, a bad one renders him untradeable. this is not just about 2016, but 2017-2018 as well.

Again, keeping Niese AND resigning Colon means u are in a position of strength come trade deadline time.

who’s the next phenom coming up that gives us that depth ?

I dont think keeping Niese long term is a good solution either…

I just think we could’ve gotten a bigger return than an ok 2B who may accept a QO if he has the same year he had in 2015….meaning….we probably wouldnt offer him one.

I think Neil Walker is an ok player. He wont kill ur chances at winning. it isnt a statement about him as much as what we could’ve gotten back for Niese.

I would rather have traded him to the Yanks or Sox for a corner IF or corner OF prospect

You’re still ignoring the fact that Colon wouldn’t have signed here if Niese was still here starting. Niese was horrible last year, and though I think he still has better days left, we were lucky to get an MLB-caliber player, let alone a borderline top 10 2B. By the way, since you’re a sabermetrics skeptic, here are Walker and Murph’s boxcar stat averages per-year since 2011:

So even if you ignore everything, Walker has still been a slightly better offensive performer, and is still a better defensive 2B. If you think Murph is a tremendous value, then it doesn’t make sense that Walker isn’t – especially when you consider Walker is making less per year than Murph.

There’s obviously no new phenom, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of promising young kids ready to go. Verrett showed a lot in his spot starts last year, Montero was a top prospect two years ago, Ynoa and Lugo might be able to make some spot starts, Molina, Gsellman and Flexen all have a solid chance of being at least back of the rotation starters. You’re complaining about not having anymore star pitchers coming up when we have 5 guys that throw 95+. Ridiculous.

Neil Walker, even if he repeats this season, will absolutely test free agency next year. He’s going to be an above average starter in a free agent class filled with very few of those, with most others being 34+. Unless he totally bombs, which there is literally no evidence he will, he’ll decline the QO and net us another first rounder. Murph got 3/37.5, Walker can almost definitely get close to the same if not more. Trading Niese for a random prospect is crazy when you can get a surefire MLB starter and most likely a first rounder.

Also, as for evidence not being your opinion… “I think Neil Walker is an ok player,” “I don’t think keeping Niese long term is a good term solution either,” “I just think we could’ve gotten a bigger return….” LOL.

“Neil Walker, even if he repeats this season, will absolutely test free agency next year. ”

If Neil Walker hits .269 with 16 HR, he’s not going to get a big contract and he would not top 15 mil per year.

Daniel Murphy was 2nd in hits in the NL since 2011, plays a horrible 2B, but is a decent corner infielder.

Wheeler’s elbow can be a spaghetti mess this year, we have NO IDEA how he is going to turn out.

We have the 4 horsemen + Colon signed with the understanding he would be moved to the pen if Wheeler came back healthy, He signed to play for a winner, not to be a starter all year long, so there goes that.

and comparing their box-car stats is a bit disingenous. it completely ignores everything that happened in NY while Murph was here. I remember articles in 2012-2014 where Murph said Hudgens would reprimand him for getting hits on balls that were borderline strikes with less than 2 outs. Basically, even going against all odds here, Murph is got more hits, more doubles, less walks, less strikeouts.than walker.

It was a mehhh move. we would’ve been better off with Niese as the 5th starter and trading him from a position of strength later on.

If they both have great years then the Mets also get 2 extra draft picks. I’m sure ownership would’ve liked Murphy back but didn’t want to be tied up to the guaranteed $$. Sure they got Cespedes but the front loaded deal is basically begging him to opt out so they can stamp a QO on him. That would make 3 extra draft picks right there.

Disagree. Good trade for pirates in getting niese. Pitching market is short for solid starters like Jon. Good trade for mets too. Murphy is an awful defender, while a good hitter is does not walk much and his ceiling is known (0.780-0.790 ops).

Mets upgrade with walker for one year while having many in house candidates to fill in (Dilson Herrera, Matt Reynolds, Gavin Checcini) down the road.

If Duda is terrible or hurt they could theoretically move wright to first and play Flores or above names at third. Duda won’t be terrible though and they can afford him in arbitration , this is a New York sports franchise.

Actually Flores in the Depth Chart is our Backup 1B. They’ve already said he’ll be the backup. Wright won’t be able to convert into a 1B too well, but that’s just my opinion. If DH comes to NL Full-Time on day that’ll be our only chance to keep Wright longer

Wright obviously didn’t look good defensively last year, and it doesn’t look great going forward, but I’ll wait to see how he performs with months to prepare for a career with his newfound ailment before declaring him done. That’s happened before and he went on to post two phenomenal seasons in a row.

This guy is one of the better ballplayers of the last decade, a month of rough defensive performance doesn’t make him “done” just yet.